A family looks to prevent evil spirits from trapping their comatose child in a realm called The Further.
Review
I need to make this very clear before I get into this that Insidious is a remake of Poltergeist.
It may not state it anywhere, it may not be admitted by the film makers, but this is a remake. Its too damn close to Poltergeist for anyone to even try and refute the fact.
Because of my views on this I've decided to break everything down and compare with Tobe Hoopers brilliant original film. There will be spoilers so if you want to judge the film for yourself then read no further.
Poltergeist has a central family. So does Insidious. Two parents, three children. They move to a new house. all very similar so far.
One of the children is drawn to a spooky presence - Poltergeist has the TV, Insidious has a fire in the attic - child then goes missing - Poltergeist's child disappears, Insidious's child drops into a coma. The common link is they are both in a different astral plane.
Parents struggle to comprehend what's going, child's room seems to be haunted by 'something' - all identical. Here Insidious does divert slightly and come up with the one original thing in itself that the family does move to a different house but.... the haunting continues.
Then we're back to normal again - Parents hire someone to come in and find out what's causing the haunting. Two techy guys and a mysterious woman. Unashamedly IDENTICAL characters to Poltergeist. Gizmo's and cameras are used to see spirits coming and going - just like Poltergeist - but there is one pure evil that is after the child - just like Poltergeist.
Mysterious woman tells one of the parents to go in after missing child - just like Poltergeist - Parent does and brings the child out - just like Poltergeist. Ridiculous twist - Again a slight difference in the fact that Poltergeist's twist was brilliant - and an ending you see coming from a mile away and we're done.
That's the core of the film. Can you honestly tell me that is not, in essence, a similar story and film to Poltergeist? It's indisputable, throughout the whole running time I felt I was watching a remake, and a poor one at that. The biggest kicker in all this as well is the fact that it's just not scary. Not in the slightest. I suppose you could call that another diversion from Poltergeist.
I'm not going to apologies for this review, I know its different from what I usually try and do, but in this instance a film that plagiarises someone's else's work and doesn't acknowledge the fact doesn't deserve anything but a comparison piece.
The fact that they changed the haunted house angle to something a little different is the only reason why this film wasn't relegated to the dreaded one star rating.
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